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Saturday, February 22, 2014

(New York) – Venezuelan security forces have
used excessive and unlawful force against protesters on multiple
occasions since February 12, 2014, including beating detainees and
shooting at crowds of unarmed people, Human Rights Watch said today.

The government has censored the news media, blocking transmission of a
TV channel and threatening to prosecute news outlets for their coverage
of the violence. President Nicolás Maduro announced on February 20,
2014, that he had begun proceedings to take CNN off the airwaves in Venezuela,
and a press workers union reported on February 21 that the government
had cancelled the credentials of CNN’s Caracas correspondent.
Journalists and human rights defenders have reported being subject to
acts of violence and intimidation by government agents or supporters.

“The Venezuelan government has openly embraced the classic tactics of
an authoritarian regime, jailing its opponents, muzzling the media, and
intimidating civil society,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch.

At least three demonstrators have been shot dead, and scores have been injured since February 12.

The Maduro government has blamed opposition leaders for the violence.
Leopoldo López, one of the most prominent opposition figures, was
arrested on February 18, and a judge ordered his pretrial detention on
February 20. An arrest warrant has also been issued for Carlos Vecchio,
another leader of López’s political party, according to news reports.
The government has yet to present credible evidence linking either man
to any crime.

Several governments in Latin America, including Argentina, Bolivia,
Cuba, and Ecuador, as well as international allies such as Syria and
Iran, have expressed support for the Maduro government and criticized
what the government characterizes as attempts to destabilize the
country.

“Any leaders genuinely concerned with the well-being of democracy in
Venezuela should send a clear message that these authoritarian practices
are unacceptable,” Vivanco said.

Excessive Use of Force Against Protesters
Human Rights Watch has received multiple reports from local human
rights advocates that Venezuelan security forces in Caracas and other
parts of the country have beaten or shot at unarmed protesters since
February 12.

A video posted online by the newspaper Ultimas Noticias shows
uniformed police accompanied by men in civilian clothing in Caracas who
appear to be shooting live ammunition at fleeing protesters – among
them 24-year-old Bassil Da Costa, who is seen falling to the ground with
a fatal gunshot to the head.

The use of live ammunition by security forces would only be lawful
under international standards if their targets pose an imminent threat
to the life of or of injury to the security forces or third parties.
There is video
evidence of anti-government protesters engaging in acts of violence and
vandalism, including throwing rocks at police. But the government has
not provided, nor has Human Rights Watch been able to find after
reviewing dozens of videos posted online, footage showing
anti-government protesters carrying firearms or using lethal force
against security forces or third parties.

All available accounts from witnesses indicate that the majority of
protesters were peaceful, and those that engaged in violence or
vandalism did not carry firearms or use lethal force against security
forces or third parties.

Local human rights advocates also report that demonstrators have been
abused in detention. The Human Rights Center of the Catholic University
Andrés Bello examined information regarding more than 90 cases of
detained protesters in Caracas, interviewing both detainees and family
members, and found that members of security forces physically abused
many of the detainees or threatened them with beatings or rape. Most
were held incommunicado and not taken before a judge within the 48-hour
limit required by law.

Any protesters who engaged in violence or vandalism should be held
accountable, but under no circumstances is it acceptable or lawful to
shoot at people who are unarmed or beat them when they are in detention.

Government Response
The Maduro government’s immediate response to the violence on February
12 was to blame López and other opposition leaders. Vice President Elías
Jaua declared that López was the “intellectual author” of the killings,
and a judge promptly ordered that López be detained. The government has
not made public any credible evidence to substantiate these
allegations.

López is in pretrial detention while prosecutors determine whether
there is enough evidence to accuse him of “incitement to commit crimes”
and “association,” among other crimes, media accounts say. The crime of
“association” is vaguely defined as “forming part of a group of
organized crime” in the country’s Organic Law Against Organized Crime
and Terrorism Financing, and carries a possible sentence of up to 10
years.

Vecchio is also being investigated for his alleged responsibility in
these crimes, media accounts say. On February 20, the reports say,
pro-government supporters asked the National Assembly to lift the
parliamentary immunity of Maria Corina Machado, a member of the National
Assembly who is openly critical of the government.

On February 16, after Ultimas Noticias posted the video of the
shooting of protesters, President Maduro declared on national TV that
members of the intelligence police (Servicio Bolivariano de Inteligencia
Nacional, Sebin) who appear in that video had not complied with his
order to stay off the streets on the day of the shootings. On February
17, a member of the intelligence police was detained for his
participation in the events of February 12, the reports said, and the
government dismissed the intelligence police director. The government
has not indicated whether members of the intelligence police or other
security forces are being investigated for abuses against civilians.

On February 18, media accounts reported that the prosecutor’s office
identified Jonathan Rodríguez as one of the non-uniformed men in the Ultimas Noticias video
and named him as a suspect in two of the shooting deaths on February
12. Authorities at that time had not yet determined whether he was a
member of state security forces.

In the video, neither the uniformed police nor national guardsmen near
Rodríguez on the street make any effort to deter him during the
shooting, or to prevent him from leaving after he fired his gun.

Armed Groups of Pro-Government Civilians
The local human rights organization Venezuelan Program for Education
Action on Human Rights (Programa Venezolano de Educación-Acción en
Derechos Humanos, Provea) has documented how the government of Venezuela
has tolerated and promoted groups of armed civilians in the country.
These groups have intimidated protesters and initiated violent incidents
during demonstrations in various parts of the country since February
12, the rights group says.

President Maduro said on February 15 that he does not “accept violent
groups within Chavismo and the Revolution,” and that only the Armed
Forces should carry firearms. While these armed groups have operated
openly for years, the government has not taken effective steps to disarm
them.

Multiple press accounts reported that on February 18, eight protesters
were shot, one fatally, when a group of men in civilian clothes on
motorcycles opened fire at demonstrators in Valencia.

Human Rights Defenders
Venezuelan human rights advocates have also reported acts of
intimidation and violence. Inti Rodríguez, the media coordinator of
Provea, told Human Rights Watch that approximately 20 men dressed in
black with their faces covered abducted him as he was leaving his office
on the evening of February 12. He said they carried him on a motorcycle
without license plates to an area of Caracas allegedly controlled by
armed pro-government groups. Rodríguez said that the men held him for
two hours, beat him, threatened to kill him, and interrogated him about
his human rights work. He said that the men never identified themselves
but that the group’s leader used police language, and that he overheard
conversations that suggested the men were in contact with security
forces.

On February 13, Interior and Justice Minister Manuel Rodríguez Torres
accused Humberto Prado, the director of the Venezuelan Observatory of
Prisons, a local nongovernmental organization that monitors prison
conditions in the country, of organizing a plan to “generate lack of
governance in all the prisons in the country and promoting a matrix of
violence.” Minister Rodríguez Torres claimed that the violence on
February 12 was the result of plans conceived in 2012 by Prado and
“fascist groups” with the intention of “driving Venezuela to a civil
war.”

This is not the first time government officials have sought to
discredit Prado by accusing him of attempting to undermine Venezuelan
democracy. After Prado criticized the government in June 2011 for its
handling of a prison riot, the justice minister at the time accused him
of seeking to “destabilize the prison system” and the vice president at
the time claimed the criticism was part of a strategy to “politically
destabilize the country.”

Attacks on Journalists
Journalists covering the protests and related violence have reported
that both security forces and pro-government demonstrators have detained
and physically assaulted them since February 12. Public Space (Espacio
Público), a nongovernmental organization that monitors media freedom in
Venezuela, has documented 17 cases in which journalists were detained or
assaulted, or both between February 12 and 16. These include:

Rafael Hernández, a photographer for the magazine Exceso, who
reported that members of the investigative police (Cuerpo de
Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas, CICPC) detained
him on February 12 after he took a picture of a police officer beating a
woman. Hernández was held for nine hours and beaten repeatedly by CICPC
officers, Public Space reported. The police confiscated his camera.

Juan Pablo Bieri, a Colombian journalist with the TV news channel Red Más Noticias,
reported that the National Guard detained him on February 16, and held
him for an hour inside a military vehicle, where they interrogated and
beat him.

Mariana Cadenas, a reporter from the international news agency Agence France-Press,
told Human Rights Watch that on February 12, a man dressed in red took
her video camera, in which she had images demonstrators being detained
and beaten. The man and approximately 10 others with him shouted at her,
accusing her of being a “fascist” and a “coup-plotter.” She said that
approximately 40 members of the National Guard 30 meters away saw the
incident and did not react. When she asked them for help, they refused,
and one said: “Didn’t you know what you were exposing yourself to when
you came here?”

Censorship of News Media
On February 11, William Castillo, director of CONATEL, the state
broadcasting authority, warned media outlets that news coverage of
violent incidents could violate the Venezuelan broadcasting law.
Castillo cited article 27 of the law, which the pro-Chávez National
Assembly passed in 2004 and modified in 2010. The article gives the
government broad powers to punish private media for broadcasting
material that – in the government’s estimation – “foments anxiety in the
population or threatens public order,” “denies the authority of the
legitimately constituted authorities,” or “incites or promotes hatred
and intolerance for religious [or] political reasons.”

On February 12, the government ordered the country’s cable providers to
stop transmitting the international news channel NTN 24. President
Maduro said the next day that that the order had been a “state decision”
in response to the channel’s coverage of the protests, which he
characterized as an attempt to “transmit worries of a coup d’état.”

On February 13, President Maduro instructed Communications and
Information Minister Delcy Rodríguez to “adopt measures” against
correspondents of Agence France-Press for having “distorted the truth about the events of February 12.”

On February 15, the Venezuelan government restricted the ability of
Twitter users to send images, a representative of Twitter, Inc. told
Bloomberg News.

On February 16, Minister Rodríguez said that national and international
papers had published “manipulated photos” as part of their coverage of
the violence, which constituted a crime, and that the government would
“pursue judicial actions” against them. The examples she provided
included the use of a photo from Egypt on the blog of the Spanish
newspaper ABC, and the use of a photo from 2010 on the Twitter feed of the Venezuelan newspaper Tal Cual, to represent current events in Venezuela. The minister also referred to the use by the Argentine newspaper Clarin and the Chilean newspaper El Mercurio
of an image of two Venezuelan police officers in front of a burning
car, which she accepted as taken during the current protests but that
she claimed created a false impression of the officers’ behavior.

On February 20, President Maduro announced that his government had
initiated an administrative proceeding to end transmission of the
international news channel CNN in Venezuela because of its coverage of
the protests and violence. On February 21, a press workers union
reported that the government had cancelled the credentials of CNN’s
Caracas correspondent.

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